Today in BC is reporting that "Border services officers have seized a record amount of opium – nearly 2,500 kilograms – the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced in Tsawwassen Friday morning (Dec. 16). The CBSA said the seizure, its largest to date, happened on Oct. 25 after the CBSA’s Metro Vancouver Marine Operations examined 19 marine shipping containers. Using a “wide range” of detection tools and technology, including X-ray technology, the CBSA said officers found irregularities in the shipping pallets as part of a deep concealment method.”
Further “physical examination” confirmed about 2,486 kilograms of opium concealed within 247 shipping pallets. The drugs were turned over to the RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime unit for further criminal investigation." Never mind getting an Amen, can I get a WTF?
That is astounding. It's not surprising that much opium was found at the port of Vancouver it was surprising they actually made a bust. This is good news. We have all been very cynical after they got rid of the port police. Now we see that the CBSA are able to investigate the ports themselves. They just weren't doing it. I'm sure glad they are now. That saves lives.
Huge win for the taxpayers..
ReplyDeleteThink about how much Fentanyl this was going to be made into. Why have the "precourser" (like the chemicals used to make meth) opium shipped from China to Mexico, refined in labs there, pressed into pills and then smuggled all the way across the states and then across yet another border? You don't. You have the base product shipped directly into what is thought to be an open port in the target country of consumption. "Here". It occurs that the HA might not have so many connections in China or the rest of Asia as opposed to some (other) ethnically based crime groups here in the Lower Mainland. Be that as it may, it's probably fairly easy to know the amount of Fentanyl this would make, and therefor to also guesstimate the number of overdoses we could expect out of that, right?
ReplyDeleteThere are a limited number of jobs where the people who do them can say they saved lives that day. Doctors in the ER. Paramedics. Firefighters. Police. Those folks who work for CBSA that found that stuff can sleep tonight knowing their actions likely saved hundreds of lives. That's a good day in anyone's book. Talk about knowing that the job you do has value. Congratulations are due. Merry Christmas you guys, there are that many fewer families that will remember this one as a tragedy because of you.
Actually the opium comes from Afghanistan thanks to your hard earned tax dollars. After the Taliban stopped it's production in 2001, we invaded them and our troops started protecting the opium farms so that they were restored:
Deletehttps://gangstersout.blogspot.com/2022/06/taliban-bans-opium-in-afganistan.html
Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are not derived from opium poppy.
I stand corrected. So, refined into heroin? They would need a lab somewhere here in the Lower Mainland for that. And people OD on heroin as well.
ReplyDeleteHeroin is often mixed with Fentanyl. Heroin is still popular in the DTES. That's what the safe injection site promotes.
DeleteIt's curious that they were shipping that much raw opium. One would generally want to perform extractions, and processing, prior to shipping, in order to reduce mass and volume of product necessary to smuggle
ReplyDeleteIts an unusual shipment, maybe to be sold to persian and afghan diaspora who enjoy smoking opium.
ReplyDeleteHeroin is made from opium. It's not rocket science. It's like shipping Bitumen out of Alberta. Someone has to refine it.
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